Sunday, March 16, 2014

Is anyone really in control in Ukraine?

The military and the border police continue to confiscate equipment that is being sent for the failed National Guard.

All cargo planes are inspected by the
army. From what I can tell, they are of the same opinion as the Air
Force.

The military command of Ukraine will
make a decision in the next few days and communicate it to Russia,
and their government, in that order.

70% percent of soldiers in Crimea have
already communicated officially that they are transferring to the
Russian army.

The EU, the USA and their blasted
mother don't recognize the referendum, yet in Kiev most people accept
it and care little or nothing about it.

It's incredible that [the referendum]
is more accepted here than in the rest of the world. Why don't they
leave these people alone, may I ask?

Military neighbors, friends,
colleagues, consider [the referendum] legit and understand it and
accept it. The world that gives opinions about these people, doesn't.
Strange.]

[While everyone is
concentrating on the referendum in Crimea, let's not lose sight of
what's happening in the rest of (formerly independent) Ukraine. As we
already know, the government in Kiev is dead broke; the aid that is
forthcoming from the US is barely enough to cover its debt to
Russia's Gazprom, for natural gas. Ukraine's bond yield has spiked to
50% while $15
billion of these bondsmature and have
to be rolled over this year.

A lot has been made of the Russian and
Belarussian troops massing all around Ukraine and in Crimea, but so
far little has been heard of the state of the military within Ukraine
itself. But now it appears that Ukraine's military (which has never
been involved in any armed conflict anywhere and is poorly trained
and poorly armed) is mostly on the
Russian side already,
and, in any case, not willing to follow orders from Kiev.
It also appears that the National Guard
goon squads being
hastily organized by the government in
Kiev may be effective at intimidating
civilians, but that they
won't be much of a military force.This information comes from a well-positioned
source. There is a Spanish-speaking
air traffic controller working at the
Borispol International Airport in Kiev, who
has been tweetting
in Spanish and giving a blow-by-blow
account of the goings on in the air and on the ground, along
with some useful commentary. What follows
is a summary of some of
the recent tweets.
Many thanks to Francisco for putting it
together.Here is what I see as the best
case scenario for Ukraine:
Russian and Ukrainian militaries fraternize and merge without a
single shot fired, followed by a joint
mop-up operation
against the nationalist thugs. Once the
nationalists' ability to intimidate the populace is neutralized, the
country can be reorganized, ideally as a federative structure that
supports local languages, dialects and cultures.]

The Ukrainian military are by and large
refusing to
follow orders from he government. Many if not the majority of them
are incredibly angry.
Some generals have openly declared that
they will not follow orders from some
foreign-imposed government. The chief of the Air Force is a major
problem for the government: so far he
has flatly
refused to fly any missions at all,
and has grounded all the planes.
He says that
he will not
follow orders except from a freely elected governent. Until such a
time, he will follow only his
own orders.

In this ATC's opinion,
this attitude within
the military is a good thing, because there would already
be lots of casualties
had they had followed their
orders. It looks like at least half, and
probably more, of the military feels
much more affinity toward their Russian colleages than towards the
Ukrainian Nationalists who are nominally in
power.The government is frantically
trying to recruit and organize
a National Guard, with whatever western help they can get. There
is no equipment or money in the country.

The problem with this
National Guard is that it's being recruited based on an ideology of
nationalistic bigotry and hatred
rather than any useful aptitude.
The people in
Kiev are much more afraid of the nationalists and the National Guard
being created than of the military. It appears that the
sentiment towards the
Russians is in general very friendly, that
most Ukrainians
consider Russians to be their
brothers. The exception is the
ultra-nationalistic faction, whichsuperficially seems
to be gaining a lot of power through intimidation.

8 comments
:

according to RT the military units sent by Kiev to the border are being blocked by citizens and are turning back without much argument. Lavrov and Kerry seem to be talking and maybe things are going in the right direction of a constitution in Ukraine balancing things out. The only ethnic cleansing that will be happening in the Ukraine is of the racists, who will all land in jail. At best the corrupt politicians would go to jail to but since corruption seems to be universal nowadays this would be too idealistic a point.

Does the Holodomor have any bearing on recent events? I never hear any mention of it. What do today's Ukrainian and Russian peoples think of that time? Is there resentment? Has it been written off as Soviet crimes?

Well, none of this really surprises me. Ukrainians have never struck me as a bigoted, nationalist people, although I do understand they don't like Jews. And they certainly don't want to start a war against Russia for many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that Russia could crush Ukraine effortlessly. The current western-imposed government of Kiev is patently insane for attempting to start a war against Russia. Were they really expecting NATO to help them out, even though all of Western Europe depends on Russia for gas? Even more to the point, what was NATO thinking by initiating this conflict? Nothing has been accomplished except the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

@Mark Sebela, Saker has written a pretty good overview of the various views of the Holodomor, here (including the conflicts that preceded it and followed it):http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.ca/2014/02/follow-up-to-my-post-about-roots-and.html(for your purposes, ignore the long section about religious terminology at the bottom)

I don't know exactly how close to the mark it is, but a lot of things began to make sense after I read it.

Dimitri, thank you for continuing to follow and post about the unfolding developments in the Ukraine.

I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment the people of the Ukraine will be best served by a government which supports their individual and collective cultures.

The super powers on both sides will have to be restrained to allow this restructuring to occur. Each of the regions should elect a delegation to effect this change as quickly as possible and without external interference, while recognizing the value of their region to both Russia and Europe.

The issues causing conflict in the Ukrainian are the same as those in Iran, control over the transport of energy resources. This can and should work to the advantage of the Ukrainian people for self determination.